English 10 Reflection

English Comp 1 was an eye opening experience. The course was emotionally and physically draining, but I strongly believe it prepared me for Comp 2. Learning and improving are a few of the rewards I received through hard work and dedication during the course. Throughout English comp 1, I discovered my biggest weakness. I improved some of my various difficulties, and I achieved a rewarding high point.

As the Fall 2017 term comes to end, I look back on what I have accomplished in this class. English 102 – Composition II was one of the most challenging and toughest class I have taken at UW-Stout, but feel as though it has helped me to improve my writing skills. Even before the semester started the feeling of anxiety had taken over, as writing has never been my strongest skill, but stayed positive and confident I would be successful. Much to my surprise, my instructor, Michael Critchfield quickly addressed that this class would not be easy and amazingly changed my views of writing throughout the entire semester.

This portfolio will show you the turmoil’s of my year in 9th grade English Honors. My assignments shown in this portfolio have been very mediocre and show the many mistakes I have made throughout. I have constantly had errors in my MLA formatting and basic grammar. I think that I have these constant errors because I am just not thoroughly proofreading my work. It also reflects on how many errors have escaped my proofreadings’ and I hope to improve this skill in the future. I have also had a lot of problems with analyzing texts and making through commentaries. Like my proofreading skills, I strive to really improve and strengthen my disadvantages. Strengthening these skills will greatly benefit me in the future if I shall take AP English 11

Since the beginning of this semester, English 101 has helped me realize both my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. One weakness that I have realized about myself is my tendency to not fully plan out my essays before I start writing the rough drafts. This is one thing that English 101 has helped me to improve, by creating well-planned out outlines before starting to write. A strength that I have is writing strong commentary that supports the provided quote and shows why the quote is relevant to the essay’s overall thesis.

In my English 111 class, we wrote four essays about various topics. In my portfolio, I will reflect on my writing in my narrative, literary analysis, compare and contrast, and cause and effect essays.

What have I learned in English 102? When I began this class, I had not taken a formal English class in over thirty years. I understood sentence structure and essay writing to a point. To elaborate my understanding was based on story telling rather than research and factual commentary. Of course, rhetorical review and research was foreign to me. I had a loose understanding but had never practiced or been in a position to apply these skills. Or at least that is what I thought. Since beginning this course, I have found it both challenging and enlightening. I feel that my skills have developed over the last few weeks and a greater understanding of what it takes to identify and understand complicated subjects has progressed. Not just that I can read difficult scholarly text, but that I can focus on what they are trying to say, their argument, and then develop my own counter argument in support of or against the authors statements. It is more than just saying I concur or I do not agree with you. It is stating how my point of view differs and supporting my statements logically and directly with facts, not just conjecture. Within the following paragraphs I will discuss, in more detail, the specific areas where I feel I have matured and how I intend to apply this new-found knowledge to my future writing as well as reading materials to assess their value.

Throughout the course of English 16, I have improved my writing. The worksheets and notes provided helps me become a better writer than I was when I first stepped into the classroom. Revising my paper after the second draft or ‘final copy’ helped me better under the process and time that must be in to make a perfect paper. In the course, there were four assignments, a research paper, a research proposal, diagnostic essay and a essay about appearance.

English 111 was an educational journey for me. Throughout the course, I was able to develop my own writing style as well as learn how to perfect my writing skills. At the start, I was not fully prepared to be a good writer. I did not know who the writer was inside of me. I could not find her and did not even know where to look. I realized that my goal was not just to get good grades, but be able to understand and absorb the material. The lessons I would learn in English 111 would be of great importance. Being a good writer is necessary in order for me to succeed in any of the adventures that tomorrow might hold. For this reason, my expedition through English 111 made me the writer I am today and there are several reasons how.

As the semester comes to an end this assignment gives me a great opportunity to look back on my experiences in English 111. Through my experience in English 111 recognizing several ideas that have greatly impacted me, my point of view on learning, and my actual learning. My experience in college has been beneficial because my professor approached teaching with a more aware effort and taught me how to approach learning and my role as a learner in a way. It is tough to put into words how much I have grown as a writer.

In English 101, I mastered getting to the point of getting to my essays with less disappointment with force; I learned the significant use of scratch paper. For example, I wasn’t always use to writing my essays on scratch paper; however, keeping in mind that the scratch paper was a nondurable tool as I finished my paper, because I knew they would be thrown away. Also, the professor required us to submit our scratch paper along with our essays. With this procedure, I was forced to rewrite my essays. He felt that the scratch paper would be a help to us as we continually to learn how to effectively write our essays.

I'm writing this in the hopes that whomever it is that I should contact for help with scheduling may find it. I am not entirely sure if it is currently going to someone whom it may concern as the only counseling email listed is yours. If you are capable of assisting with this plight, please disregard this paragraph, otherwise I ask that you please forward it to whoever will best handle it.

During my first semester of English 9A I found that the hardest book I read was the book our whole class read, To Kill A Mockingbird. I think the reason this was my most challenging book was because of the language and style of writing the author used. While reading the book, I had to learn how the author used certain terms such as “reckon”. I also picked up that the author used apostrophes to identify different accents for certain characters. In chapter 3 when Calpurnia was yelling at Scout, I noticed how the author changed words such as “company” to “comp’ny” and “them” to “‘em”. This was hard at first for me to get used to, but I quickly adapted to it making the book an easier read as I went along.

“Change is the end result of all true learning”. Leo Buscaglia could not said this phrase any better. Learning new things is my biggest feature in life and I continued to show the effort to learn new information this semester. The moment I stepped my foot in English 111 First Year Composition, it has been a humbling experience. As the semester closes, this class gives me a better opportunity to look back at all I have accomplished with. In the beginning, I really was not interested in the course because reading and writing is not my strongest suit, but I did ended up liking this course after all. I appreciated the bad grade I received on one of my papers because it has aided me in becoming a better writer.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

I have only been attending Cleveland State University for two semesters, and as this course comes to an end I feel like I grown and learned many techniques more than ever. I came to Cleveland State University with only my high school knowledge on how to format an argumentative essay, and throughout this course I now know how to write and format many other papers. Taking English 100 has taught me how to break down and analyze an article, it taught me how to find confidence in my work, and it helped me grow to an even better writer.